Tuesday, December 14

Media Fusion has obtained a patent on a technique to transmit high speed Internet traffic over power lines.

Teles A.G. is planning to roll out satellite-based DSL service in France and the UK next month. The SkyDSL system uses an antenna to pick up the signal. Cost with equipment rental is about US$15 per month for unlimited access, with speeds up to 4 Mbytes/second.

CableLabs has certified Best Data's cable modem for DOCSIS compliance. DOCSIS is an industry standard that allows competing brands of cable modems to be used on the same cable modem network.

Shares of Com21 jumped after the company announced CableLabs DOCSIS certification.

Zoom is demonstrating new DOCSIS-compatible cable modems that connect via USB and provide wireless home networking.

Security and privacy

The Japanese web site for the Babylonia virus, which could download updates to itself from across the Internet, has been taken down, leaving copies of the virus with no way to update themselves. Babylonia was the first virus that could update its viral payload, but the rapid removal of the site suggests that the technique is easily defeated.

A new worm - called Worm.NewApt - can mail copies of itself using Microsoft Outlook or Netscape Communicator's email client. The worm has affected computers in Italy. So far, its only activity seems to be writing to the registry and emailing itself.

CERT has an advisory concerning vulnerabilities in some implementations of SSH (secure shell).

The US has granted an export license to PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), which provides strong encryption and authentication. Previously, US countries could not sell the software could not be sold outside of the US. The software can still not be sold to some nations - such as Iraq and Cuba - on the US enemies list.

ZDNet ponders whether the conviction in the Melissa case will discourage other virus authors.

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Friday, December 17

New Mexico will soon have DSL, now that a legal battle is over. New Mexico was the only state in US West's 14-state service area without DSL.

AOL and Wal-Mart have reached a deal to co-market a Wal-Mart-branded version of the CompuServe service, and to distribute AOL CDs in Wal-Mart stores. At the same time, MSN and Best Buy have reached their own co-marketing agreement.

TI and Cisco are collaborating on cable modem chipsets.

Former Excite executive Patrick Naughton was convicted of a lesser charge of child pornography after the jury deadlocked on charges of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor.

Microsoft's Windows 2000 has gone gold and should reach stores on February 17.

Security and privacy

When Mac OS 9 users log off of a NetWare network, their connections remain open and available for other users.

Security firm Reliable Systems Technologies has discovered a password hole in Netscape mail. The company was able to break Netscape's email password algorithm. In some versions of Netscape, a web page JavaScript can retrieve the user's email password.

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